4. Since Twain characterizes Jim as superstitious and illiterate, how can Twain be considered sympathetic?
5. Why are Hearn’s beliefs about Negroes termed “stock”?
6. Compare William Wells Brown’s Clotel with Frances Harper’s Iola Leroy.
7. Compare Dunbar and Chesnutt.
8. What new characters appear in this chapter?
CHAPTER VI
OLD PATHS
Beautiful, Amusing Servitude. In the early twentieth century, under the influence of Thomas Nelson Page, a legion of writers wept over the vanished glory of the old plantation and presented Negroes of extreme devotedness to their masters. One writer in her book of sketches grieved:
Aunt Phebe, Uncle Tom, Black Mammy, Uncle Gus, Aunt Jonas, Uncle Isom, and all the rest—who shall speak all your virtues or enshrine your simple faith and fidelity? It is as impossible as it is to describe the affection showered upon you by those whom you called ‘Marster and Missis.’
Impossible though it may have been, countless authors attempted it, turning back time in its flight to sweetness and splendor that belong to another world than this.